Cinder
Marissa Meyer, 2012
Science fiction FantasyYoung adultRomance
Cinderella as a cyborg mechanic in a crowded future Beijing, where a prince brings her a broken android and the city is quietly afraid. A satirical, identity-hungry YA voice moves through a crowded future Beijing with longing and odd serenity, light on its mechanical feet.
Feels like longing and serenity. About identity and society.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy fairy-tale retellings with cyborg mechanics, a prince, and a tentative romance in a vividly crowded city. The Cinderella scaffold is constant, so readers wanting science fiction unbound from fairy-tale parallels may find the premise more familiar than strange.
Why read it
It gives you a sharp, playful take on a familiar story, with a mechanic heroine and a future Beijing that feels crowded, uneasy, and alive.
A page from the book
The song is about the plague. The laughter is entirely real.
A smile tugged at Cinder’s lips. Not so much at the nursery rhyme, a phantom song about pestilence and death that had regained popularity in the past decade. The song itself made her squeamish. But she did love the glares from passersby as the giggling children fell over in their paths. The inconvenience of having to swarm around the writhing bodies stirred grumbles from the shoppers, and Cinder adored the children for it. Marissa Meyer.Meyer wrote the first draft of Cinder during National Novel Writing Month; the cyborg Cinderella became her debut novel in 2012.
Books that feel like this
More by Marissa Meyer
Cress
Marissa Meyer, 2014
A girl raised alone in a satellite is the only one who can see the queen's real plan — if anyone will believe her.
Winter
Marissa Meyer, 2015
Snow White on a colonised moon: a princess who refuses to use her mind-bending gift, her stepmother's glass court, and the crew plotting a revolution.
Heartless
Marissa Meyer, 2016
The Queen of Hearts was once a girl in love with a court jester—and Wonderland doesn't let anyone keep a soft heart.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Cinder for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy fairy-tale retellings with cyborg mechanics, a prince, and a tentative romance in a vividly crowded city. The Cinderella scaffold is constant, so readers wanting science fiction unbound from fairy-tale parallels may find the premise more familiar than strange.
- What is Cinder like?
- A satirical, identity-hungry YA voice moves through a crowded future Beijing with longing and odd serenity, light on its mechanical feet. Feels like longing and serenity. About identity and society.
- What should I read after Cinder?
- If you liked Cinder, try Shadow and Bone (Leigh Bardugo), The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) and Clockwork Angel (Cassandra Clare).
A taste of the feed
A question that sounds like flirtation, answered like a vow.
I can feel Peeta press his forehead into my temple and he asks, ‘So now that you’ve got me, what are you going to do with me?’ I turn into him. ‘Put you somewhere you can’t get hurt.
The Hunger Games · Suzanne Collins
What it means when a shattered face doesn't bleed.
It connected with a sickening sound. Miranda reeled back—and then straightened. Tessa shrieked and dropped the globe, staring—the whole left side of Miranda’s face was crushed in, like a paper mask that had been smashed flat on one side. Her cheekbone was flattened, her lip mashed against her teeth. But there was no blood, no blood at all.
Clockwork Angel · Cassandra Clare
How quickly the person who knows you best becomes the one you fear most.
I love you, Brooke. That was what he said to me just a few hours before he tried to kill me.
The Inmate · Freida McFadden
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